


Destination: Healing

by OTPshipper98



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Angst, Child Abuse, Comfort Stuffed Toys, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27245521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OTPshipper98/pseuds/OTPshipper98
Summary: As much as he refused to think about it, the truth wassomethingin Harry’s chest unravelled in those dawn-hued moments of quiet when his body was heavy against the bathroom door frame, the Cloak heavy on his shoulders, and his gaze heavier than any of the two on the rise and fall of Malfoy’s breathing.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 33
Kudos: 344





	Destination: Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks TheLightFury for betaing and cheerleading!
> 
> I chose not to use archive warnings because emotional/verbal child abuse is depicted at the beginning of this story and I didn't want to take any chances. Please read cautiously if you're sensitive to this topic.

“Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay. You don’t have to be scared.”

Outside, the screams became louder. Harry pressed his back against the corner of the wall, closing his eyes to drown out the words. He brought his knees closer to himself, holding Dustball tighter against his chest; cradling her, kissing her forehead.

“They can’t hurt you here,” he whispered, kissing her again to reassure her. In turn, she collected the tear that fell from his chin in her brown, fluffy hair.

“We should’ve left him to freeze on the bloody doorstep, is what we should’ve done!” Uncle Vernon yelled, and kicked the cupboard door from the outside. Harry jumped and quickly folded himself around Dustball, burying his face in her to keep her safe.

Dudley started crying, then, and Aunt Petunia told Uncle Vernon off for scaring him. Harry held his breath, staying very still as the steps of his relatives going upstairs thundered over his head. Wondering if Aunt Petunia knew he was scared, too; if she would scold Uncle Vernon for scaring Harry if she knew.

When they were gone, Harry petted Dustball’s head; kissed her forehead and her big, floppy ears. But Dustball was still scared, and so Harry rocked her back and forth with his whole body and, very quietly, sang to her till she fell asleep.

_Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,_

_When the wind blows, the cradle will rock…_

***

Harry couldn’t sleep. It was okay; Ron and Hermione couldn’t either, he could tell by the way they were breathing.

It was their first night in that tent, the first of what would probably be many until they somehow, _somehow_ found the remaining Horcruxes and a way to destroy them.

It was the first night in a very long time that Harry slept without Dustball.

The hours passed, and Harry tossed and turned in frustration, unable to find the right posture, unable to ease the raging stream of thoughts in his mind.

When dawn came, Harry gave up and crawled out of the sleeping bag.

***

Things were meant to be okay after the war. The Wizarding World was meant to be a better place for everyone.

And in a way, it was. It _was_ , only…

Only Harry didn’t feel like he was part of that change. He didn’t feel like he was part of much anymore, really. Everyone was healing, everyone was moving on, and the destruction the war had left behind was turning into flourishing colour, into brightness, into light, and it was like Harry could only watch all of it happen from the outside—from a place stuck in time, where things had stayed the same and would never move forth.

It was like being back at King’s Cross—the King’s Cross that wasn’t real, that was a stop between life and death—and watching the bustling multitude, watching the trains come and go, but not having a ticket to board any of them. Not knowing anyone who would miss him when they left him behind.

So when his Eighth Year started, and Harry was coerced out of Grimmauld Place by an exceedingly worried Ron and Hermione and a very stern Minerva McGonagall, Harry felt like he was being forcibly carried into one of those trains; like he was being asked to endure a journey that would lead him nowhere, because no one in the train seemed to look at him, the people who tried couldn’t help but look _through_ him, and the idea of reaching a destination felt so absurd he was sure he’d just sit through the entire journey until he was back to where he’d boarded.

These thoughts still in mind, Harry entered the Great Hall for the yearly sorting ceremony. At the end of it, McGonagall announced the Eighth years would have a Common Room of their own, and wouldn’t share dorms the way they had done before. Harry sighed in relief. His new dorm could be his new Grimmauld Place. He would still have a place to go where he wouldn’t have to pretend like he was a part of the world everyone else liked to thank him for giving them. Where he wouldn’t have to pretend he was okay.

“Instead,” McGonagall said then, after the second that it took Harry to appoint his new dorm his new safe hiding spot, “You will be roomed in pairs.”

There were questions. There were complaints, and Dean and Seamus shared a wicked look that Harry couldn’t bring himself to unpack. He just stared into space, wishing he could drape his Invisibility Cloak around himself and quietly take the train back home.

***

When he pulled the stuffed dog out of his trunk and laid her on the bed against his pillow, Malfoy stared at him. Harry glared back, half-hiding the small rush of embarrassment that fluttered in his chest, half-daring Malfoy to say something about it.

He was only mildly disappointed when Malfoy just swallowed and turned back to his own trunk. Turned back to ignoring Harry like he’d been doing since they’d crossed paths on Platform 9¾ earlier that day.

***

When Harry woke up the next morning, entirely too early, shaken by a distant nightmare, the light of the tender dawn was barely enough to give colour to the silhouettes of the unfamiliar bedroom. Harry rose from his bed and walked past Malfoy’s to drink some water from the bathroom tap.

When he walked back into the room, he threw a glance at Malfoy’s sleeping figure and saw a stuffed toy—a bunny?—pressed close to Malfoy’s chest.

Harry halted. Watched, for a few seconds, as Malfoy breathed, slowly and evenly, hair splayed over the pillow, hand tucked under his cheek. Then he grabbed his Invisibility Cloak from the trunk at the foot of his bed, put on a pair of shoes, and left as quietly as possible with no particular direction in mind.

***

Malfoy’s stuffed bunny was never in sight during daytime. Harry thought, many times, of confronting Malfoy about it; he had, after all, disclosed Dustball’s existence to Malfoy, so why did the prat think Harry would mock him for sleeping with a stuffed toy as well?

The only thing holding him back was fear. Fear that Malfoy would deny the existence of the bunny; that he would stop pulling it out at night to cuddle when he thought Harry was asleep, and that Harry would lose those moments at dawn: those moments where he was allowed to observe another person’s vulnerability.

As much as he refused to think about it, the truth was _something_ in Harry’s chest unravelled in those dawn-hued moments of quiet when his body was heavy against the bathroom door frame, the Cloak heavy on his shoulders, and his gaze heavier than any of the two on the rise and fall of Malfoy’s breathing. Those moments when the thought of Malfoy’s body tucked and curled under the blankets did more to warm Harry than the thick Cloak covering him.

And the truth was that _something_ , strange and constricting and _new_ , followed him through the corridors of the castle, weighing down on Harry’s every breath, tinting Harry’s every thought with the colour of the autumn morn.

***

It wasn’t until the arrival of the Christmas hols, when Harry decided to stay at Hogwarts knowing full well the Weasleys wouldn’t allow him to hide away at Grimmauld instead of going to the Burrow, that Harry realised he missed Malfoy.

Not knowing what to do with the information, Harry carefully tucked it away at the back of his mind, instead trying (and failing) to concentrate on the assignments he’d have to hand in when classes resumed.

But the small realisation, even from its place of seclusion, reached Harry’s consciousness through the silence that reigned in their dorm at night, through the lack of clumsy footsteps when Malfoy made his sleepy way to bed at night and of awkward words exchanged when one of them needed something from the other. Through the lack of the smell of Malfoy’s hair potions filling the bathroom every Wednesday and Sunday after breakfast. With its small, faint voice, it reminded Harry, over and over, that he had gotten used to this hesitant dance they did around each other, to the things they shared in silence and the things they kept unacknowledged, to Malfoy’s breathing and Malfoy’s scent and Malfoy’s hair splayed over his pillow and his hand under his cheek.

It reminded Harry, over and over, that he didn’t want to be alone anymore.

***

It was raining the day Draco came back from the holidays, their room almost as dark as it was in those secret moments at twilight, except colourless—grey.

Harry was sitting on his bed when Malfoy walked in, trunk in tow. Malfoy eyed him, closed the door behind him. Looked at Harry again, and, after a moment, said, “Hey.”

A breath got stuck in Harry’s lungs, then, and, like the ripple that starts the tsunami, it imploded into a storm—much like the one outside—that swirled inside his chest, raging, desperate to get out. Every single thought he’d carefully set aside, carefully avoided and neglected and locked away in the back of his mind, turning and turning in a maelstrom of hurt and fear and _hope._

“I know you sleep with a stuffed bunny,” Harry said, tone much more nonchalant than he’d expected.

Malfoy whirled around and stared at him in horror. Harry didn’t know what the expression oin his face was as he stared back; only that he was standing on a very thin rope between feeling too much and feeling nothing at all. But whatever his expression was, a moment later Malfoy’s shoulders sagged as he breathed out, eyes still locked on Harry, and said, “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I don’t know.”

Malfoy huffed.

“Okay,” he said, turning to set his trunk at the foot of his bed.

“I think I missed you.”

Malfoy didn’t turn to look at him, this time. He just straightened, slowly, and stood with his back to Harry for a second that felt like an eternity.

“I’m sorry,” Harry murmured eventually.

“Potter,” Malfoy said, a broken chuckle, and then turned to look at him. “What the hell are you sorry for?”

Malfoy’s cheeks were a pretty shade of pink, eyes wide in poorly-concealed fright; Harry’s words died down before he could answer, and for a moment time seemed to stop, the space between two heartbeats expanding and multiplying.

Then, “I—I missed you too. You idiot,” Malfoy added for good measure.

“Okay.” Harry couldn’t keep the smile from his voice.

Malfoy shook his head. Stared at Harry for another moment, a look of disbelief on his face, and then turned around with a _tsk_ and set about organising his things. Much to Harry’s surprise, he pulled the stuffed bunny out of a hidden pocket inside his trunk and placed it on the middle of his bed, in about the same way Harry always placed Dustball in the mornings.

“You and I,” Malfoy said before Harry could comment on it, “are going to Hogsmeade tomorrow.”

And as a new storm, warmer, _fuzzier_ , flared in Harry’s stomach, Harry said, once more, “Okay,” and absent-mindedly played with one of Dustball’s ears.

***

Harry pulled the front door open; watched, while Draco put on his boots, as the wind shook the snow out of the trees in their yard so that it joined the white layer that covered the quiet street.

It was a bright morning, the sky blue and the sunlight glistening against the snow. When Draco finished putting his scarf on, he rested his chin on Harry’s shoulder and hugged him from behind; Harry smiled to himself and leaned back, enjoying the view for a few moments. Then he turned in Draco’s arms, pressed a soft kiss against Draco’s lips: their smiles met.

“See you after work,” Harry said, pressing another kiss to Draco’s rosy cheekbone.

“See you, you sappy idiot,” Draco said, and, stepping back, Disapparated.

Harry locked the door and Disapparated as well.

From their bed, lying one against the other, Dustball and Hoppity-Mittens guarded the house.


End file.
